Seeking Warmth
by diaphanousheart
Summary: What kind of sky would Xanxus have turned out be if he had a sister, an older one at that, to help carve his way from the slums? A story of siblings, struggling their way into the mafia world.
1. Chapter 1: Gunshot

**Disclaimer**

I do not own the Katekyo Hitman Reborn! series. All rights belong to Akira Amano and Co.

* * *

 **Chapter One: Gunshot**

It's always cold in the slums. No matter if she can steal a few blankets from the old lady five blocks over who mostly pretends not to know, or scavenge a few partly-used matches, she always shivers through the night.

Theresa spends the dusk curled up just inside the door of their little shack, quietly watching the too bright sun struggle against the dying of day through a crack. As the lanterns and streetlights flicker awake, the clatter of drunken feet against the pavement come alive and the rushing of clothes and coin and secrets fills the new night, she listens. And when her mother brings in a new drunkard, tainted silver song ringing through their one-and-a-half room space, Theresa hides, cradling a small bundle into the shadows.

Her mother always removes the man at the first call of day, the first chatter of people along the streets. Then she comes to find her daughter and son, taking the smaller hand into her own and the cloth-swaddled babe into the other arm. And despite the faults, despite the dozens of bottles lining the corners and floor of the room, Theresa knows that her mother can care. She always comes back, after all.

On odd days, when Ariel doesn't have the need or desire to pick up another client, she sits down beside her spawn, nursing a bottle in one hand and a stick in another. It's on these days that Theresa learns to read and write, to learn and listen, and to use others. She learns how to paint her nails with wax and wild berries, to form her phrases, to walk (with poise and elegance and lethality.) Her mother often says that she has to learn how to play the world into her palm. (It's every woman for herself in the red light district. It has never been anything less, and never will be anything more. You learn your way around or you bleed out in the alleys.)

Never mind that she's five, and he's barely one.

The baby cries, occasionally, and screams and whimpers until the day dies. Ariel hates him, most of the time, so Theresa hides him away. Staring into red eyes, letting small but strong fingers pull on her light colored locks, she sometimes thinks that they barely look alike. He has shadow-black hair and bright red eyes, and her own blond-grey combination doesn't match at all. They share their mother's angled nose though, Theresa notes. When they walk into the streets she can see that in the puddles along the stones.

When she's alone with the baby and the day is clear, she wanders with him along the sides of the buildings, the turn of the roads, and the grass of the fields. She whispers her thoughts to him and he giggles. Holding this piece of life in her arms, Theresa doesn't know if she could ever love something so much as she does now. When he walks his first shaking steps and says his first word ( _sorella_ ), Theresa's there to catch him as he falls down, and kiss him on the forehead lightly in congratulations.

Sometimes her mother's clients are pushy and violent. Theresa learns which ones are shy and which ones will make you bleed. Ariel's long mastered the art. Her daughter watches as the woman fixes her hair and eyes (that unusual grey that Theresa's inherited), her face and her smile. Watches as she approaches the one who has a slight twitch in his step, as if he doesn't know if he should walk forward or right back home. The one who carries himself with a little more poise than others, whose strides are just a little longer. Ariel always had a weak spot for the sophisticated lookers.

That weak spot, a couple bottles, and a bit of unnoticed drugged wine meant Ariel's last trip. When she hears the sharp crack of a bullet, the silent sigh of a trained killer, and the eventual retreat of footsteps, Theresa comes out of hiding. The moon is high in the sky, but she doesn't see. The floor turns from red into brown and she doesn't see. She sits uselessly by the corpse, her usually vivacious brother quietly watching on, for the whole night through. The gunshot rings through her mind, louder than her own stuttering heartbeat.

It's cold in the slums.

She has to protect her brother. Xanxus needs a sister.

Electrifying green fire runs through her veins and fingers and toes, and it's not cold anymore.


	2. Chapter 2: Ghost

**Chapter Two: Ghost**

The neighbors, the worn down whisperers with their poisonous gossip, rustle around the fringes of Theresa's little crime scene. There's no body, just charred scores along the floor, but everyone's heard the gun. Xanxus starts crying (fisted fingers and all), so his sister firmly picks him up and shushes him.

It is a walk of shame for some reason, their trod down to the river. Theresa's keenly aware of the blood she tracks into the dirt and the orange-pink streaks in the rushing waters. She's keenly aware of sharp eyes, gleaming with undescribed emotion.

If she had to guess, the vultures lean into the scene in what touches of pity, interest, and hesitation they can manage, seeking the gunner, finding the blood.  
She doesn't yet realize there are also those who watch in silent anticipation, with the glitter of promise in the black pupils, the will to use and bend and-

* * *

There's a wrinkled collection of scorched lurid colored dresses and fabrics, a torn blue scarf and a grey shawl, one or two rusted bracelets, €631 in crumpled euros (thankfully untouched), six singed letters, and a set of worn twin knives. Hidden in that small cache is a treasure chest.

The bracelets are large for her wrist, so Theresa latches them onto an ankle. She attempts to make out the letters, the messages, but can only figure out the sender – one Luciano Bovino. It's a hint, though, as to the killer. The knives and money are tucked into the folds of her clothes, and the rest of her mother's belongings are buried by the riverside.

* * *

When all is said and done, there's only her and Xanxus left, all against the world.

Sitting there, brother at her side, Theresa wonders at the setting sun. The stars shine out of the darkness, the whores call customers to their beds, and the fog of evening taints the sky.

Sitting there, she reminisces about her mother, that somewhat fictional character – sometimes there, sometimes gone. She remembers the heady perfume smell, the gleaming grey eyes, and the underlying current of regret that would sometimes strike Ariel across the face like a blow. Theresa thinks on the dry and husky laugh that rarely would wisp into the air. The even rarer hugs, given to her in moments of drunken weakness.

Ariel was a varying drunk, sometimes cruel, sometimes sad, and occasionally even loving. In her daughter's too-mature opinion, it was the only way for her to express any of that emotion.

Theresa just wished it hadn't resulted in her death.

After all, the hurting and angry woman under the clouds of makeup and mistakes was her mother. The woman who used to rock her to sleep, told her to hide in the night, told her to fight for her own place in the world, and gave her this name.

And maybe, just maybe, if it had been a different life, if, if.

Theresa misses her mother.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

Hi everyone, thank you for reading and the lovely reviews so far! This is my first fic, so I hope not to disappoint. Chapter Three is coming soon!

Fav/Follow/Review, please and thank you :).

-DiaphanousHeart


End file.
